What exactly is the appeal of medieval fantasy that makes it such a popular escapist setting?
I feel like I never really got why swords & sorcery was the default for fantasy and wish fulfillment
What exactly is the appeal of medieval fantasy that makes it such a popular escapist setting?
Carter Young
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James Wright
Most nerds are liberal, and liberals are scared of guns.
Jackson Reed
>What exactly is the appeal of medieval fantasy that makes it such a popular escapist setting?
Because it's been centuries since Don Quixote was written, but no power fantasy more appealing then being a knight errant was invented still.
Jayden Bennett
No formal education system, so you don't have to go to school anymore
Magic exists and you are the chosen one so you don't have to expend any significant effort to become more important than anyone else
Romanticized idea of preindustrial life brought on by growing up in an urban environment
Magic sword makes it so you can beat up the bully expys without needing any upper-body strength
Familiarity due to so many tropes being ingrained in media
Found the applesponge.
Ian Long
The biggest Sword & Sorcery franchise is Conan and it's not very medieval.
Henry Bailey
Legacy of the Victorians who endlessly romanized the period as a lost golden and innocent age which perfectly reflected their values (haha).
Jacob Reed
Well, consider this...
In a world like that, to truly get by well, you must either be physically or magically adept, whilst being skilled in its application.
Not everyone exactly has the means of obtaining any of those, so someone gifted must definitely have them.
Escapism is all about getting to a better place, where you either have power or simply matter more...
Isaac Hernandez
Most kings would be jealous of the kind of life and luxuries you have.
Dylan Howard
For games in particular, close range combat is more easy to create abstract rules representing it for turn based combat. In terms of fictional appeal, it can be thought of as an idealization of a period of human history where we had enough tech to live comfortably, but not so much that ubiquity of settlement and hyperspecialization of labor have yet invalidated the concept of going on an adventure.
Luis Green
Creators draw on mythology and folklore and popular stories and ideas stay in the public consciousness for a long time. Things like DnD and Lord of the Rings, both household names across the globe, have basically cemented the baseline magic, elves, dwarves, orc, and swords type of fantasy, and that will perpetuate itself. Like with Skyrim, still not dead and one of the most popular games of the generation despite being nearly a decade old now. It wasn't popular simply because it was sword and sorcery escapist fantasy, but because it was so popular, medieval fantasy will stay in the public consciousness for that much longer.
That's pretty much it.